Craig Thomler's professional blog - eGovernment and Gov 2.0 thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective

Craig Thomler

I've worked in the online sector since 1995 in roles including founder, publisher, journalist, webmaster, marketer, channel manager, CIO, COO and visionary. I left the public sector in early 2012 to lead Delib Australia as Managing Director Australia and New Zealand. More...

In my view this is now the best government open data site in Australia.

What makes it the best?

Data is available in a range of common reusable formats - from JSON and RDF through RSS and XML - as well as CSV and XLS for spreadsheet users.

Visualisation tools are built into the site, so data is not only useful to data scientists and programmers, but to the broader public who can chart and map it without having to leave the site.

The built-in embed tool allows people to take the data and rapidly include it in their own site without any programming knowledge.

Users can reorder the columns and filter the information in the site - again without having to export it first, and

discussions are built into every dataset by default.

It follows a 'generational' path for open data I've been talking about for awhile.

Most open data sites start as random collections of whatever data that agencies feel they can release as a 'quick win', to meet a government openness directive. They then progressing through more structured sites with rigour and organisation, but still only data, through to data and visualisation sites which support broader usage by the general community and finally into what I term 'data community sites', which become collaborative efforts with citizens.

In my view dataACT has skipped straight to a 3rd Generation data site at a time when other governments across Australia are struggling with 1st or 2nd Generation sites.

Well done ACT!

Now who will be the first government in Australia to get to a 4th Generation site!

Read on for my view of the generations of open data sites:

1st Generation: Data index

Contains or links to 'random' datasets, being those that agencies can release publicly quickly.

Data is released in whatever format the data was held in (PDF, CSV, etc) and is not reformatted to web standards (JSON, RDF, etc).

Some datasets are released under custom or restrictive licenses.

Limited or no ability to discuss or rate datasets

Ability to 'request datasets', but with no response process or common workflow

2nd Generation: Structured data index

Some thought regarding selective datasets, but largely 'random'

More standardisation of data formats to be reusable online

More standardisation of data licenses to permit consistent reuse

Tagging and commenting supported (as in a blog for the site), with limited interaction by site management

Workflows introduced for dataset requests, with agencies required to respond as to when they will release, or why they will not release, data

Ability to list websites, services and mobile apps created using data

3rd Generation: Standardised data index

Standardisation of data formats with at least manual conversion of data between common standard formats

Standardisation of data licenses to permit consistent reuse

Tagging and commenting supported, with active interaction by site management

4th Generation: Data community

Standardisation of data formats with automatic conversion of data between common standard formats

Standardised data licenses

Tagging, commenting and data rating supported, with active interaction by site management and data holding agencies

Data request workflows fully automated and integrated with FOI processes with transparent workflows in the site showing what stage the data release is up to - (data requested, communicated to agency, considered by agency, approved for release, being cleaned/formatted, legal clearances checked, released/refused release)

Support for data correction and conversion by the public

Support for upload of citizen and private enterprise datasets

Ability to filter, sort and visualise data, including mashing up discrete datasets within the site to broaden usage to non-technical citizens

Ability to request data visualisations as a data request

Supports collaboration between hackers to co-develop websites, services and mobile apps using data

Integrates the capability to run hack events - potentially on a more frequent basis (form/enter teams/submit hack proposals/submit hacks/public and internal voting/Winner promotion)

5th Generation: Integrated data platform

A common platform for all national, state and local data, with the capabilities for each jurisdiction to make use of all Generation 4 features.

Integrated mapping environment for all levels of government, enabled with all available open data.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Legal DisclaimerThis is a personal blog. It is not officially endorsed by the Australian Government. The views expressed are those of the author or originators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government or any other individuals or organisations.